Modular Garage and System for Transport

ABSTRACT

A modular, unified, and completed garage structure comprising first and second garage modules, having mating surfaces and exterior walls, and temporary wall bracing and temporary floor bracing, wherein the modules have open interiors, free of any supports apart from the exterior walls and the mating surfaces, wherein the first module has a garage door opening in one of the exterior walls, wherein the mating surfaces comprise matching pairs of structural lumber that span the length of the module.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to a modular garage system that is fabricated off-site and transported to a prepared site.

Residential buildings, such as single family homes, have for decades been created as one or more modules, within a factory, and thereafter trucked to a job site to be assembled as a single building. Garages have resisted such modularization and have been without exception built on the job site.

The reason for this difference is that single-family homes, and other structures, can be built in rectangles (modules), including a roof structure, where there are perimeter structural walls which create the rectangular shape and, in addition, interior demising walls to give the module additional structure. These walls are built on top of a specially constructed floor that consists of floor joists bounded by an outer perimeter of structural lumber that mimics the construction of a floor for a site-built home. This combination enables a structure for residential housing modules, and said structure can be lifted with a crane or other lifting mechanism and placed on a carrier, to be transported via interstate highway or other road to a job site. The roof trusses attached to the top beams of the rectangular module serve to provide additional structure and structurally secures the rectangular module on all six sides.

Conversely, a garage is difficult to modularize because a garage has no wooden structure for the floor. Garage walls in the form of framed dimensional lumber are typically built directly atop a concrete slab on the job site, and the concrete garage slab serves as the interior parking surface for vehicles. Further, the typical garage size of 24 ft. by 24 ft. must be separated into two halves to be modularized, in order to be narrower than the maximum width of a structure allowed for transportation on an interstate highway, which maximum dimension is 16 ft. The middle of the garage where the modular halves combine, must necessarily be an open area, due to the need for parking vehicles. Therefore, there is no natural sidewall to support this middle face of each of the garage modules. That is, there is no structural element present to complete a rectangular shape of a module or to function as a bearing point for a roof truss.

In addition, the front wall of the garage requires an opening of at least 16 ft to allow for two cars to park. This opening is for the garage door itself which permits vehicular entry to the garage.

In summary, the primary obstacles to breaking a garage into distinct modules to enable transport of said modules to a construction job site are:

1. The garage has no structural/wooden floor to enable a bottom structural plane to form for the rectangular module, which is necessary for transport to a construction job site over the highway system.

2. There is no natural wall in the middle of the garage to provide rectangular structure for each module and/or provide a bearing point for a roof truss.

3. The opening for the garage door, specifically, a single 2-car garage door, in the front wall of the garage must be a minimum of 16 ft wide for vehicular passage, and this opening cannot structurally retain its integrity during transport to a construction job site given the strong winds and rough road conditions that threaten the integrity of a modular structure during transport.

In essence, two of the six sides present in a rectangular prism housing module are not present in a garage module, and a third side of the garage module has a minimum 16 foot opening, all of which diminish the structural integrity of a garage module to preclude transportation of the module on a carrier over the road system.

Therefore, in order for a garage to be modularized, that is, built in the form of two distinct modules, allowing for transportation to a construction site and subsequent combining of said modules into a complete garage; the above obstacles to enabling garage modularization must be overcome.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a modular, unified, and completed garage structure comprising first and second garage modules, having mating surfaces and exterior walls, and temporary wall bracing and temporary floor bracing, wherein said modules have open interiors, free of any supports apart from said exterior walls and said mating surfaces, wherein said first module has a garage door opening in one of said exterior walls, wherein said mating surfaces comprise matching pairs of structural lumber that span the length of the module.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art to which the present invention relates upon reading the following description with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of wooden frame of an assembled modular garage of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a back portion of a garage base;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a front portion of a garage base;

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of the roof trusses,

FIG. 5 is a side perspective view of a rear garage module;

FIG. 6 is a side perspective view of a front garage module;

FIG. 7 is a top view of temporary base wall bracing;

FIG. 8 is a perspective view of the rear base with temporary bracing affixed;

FIG. 9 is a top view of temporary floor bracing;

FIG. 10 is a perspective view of the front garage base showing temporary wall base and floor bracing;

FIG. 11 is a perspective view of front garage shown in FIG. 10 with added wall bracing;

FIG. 12 is an alternate embodiment of FIG. 11 showing alternative wall bracing; and

FIG. 13 is a side perspective view of a garage module in a folded/transport orientation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to a modular garage system. Enabling a garage to be built off site and transported to a job site allows a builder several distinct advantages. First, the garage product may be built inside a factory in an assembly line fashion, enabling speed precision and efficiency that is not possible to achieve on a construction job site. That is, all of the various subtrades that are required to complete a garage such as framing, roofing, siding, electrical work, sheathing, and insulation can be performed within the facility in rapid succession and without weather delays.

Second, the garage modules can be standardized in terms of dimensions and can be stored at the factory and transported to the construction site when the site is ready for the garage. That is, the timing of the garage production can be separated from the production of the rest of the house; and garage production does not depend on availability of specific subcontractors, weather patterns, or availability of materials at a specific job site.

Third, the modularized garage can be set on its foundation in a few hours. This enables the single family or multifamily residential product to be completed more quickly than if the garage is hand framed and built on the construction job site. Often, a site-built garage takes weeks or even months to complete. Such speed of construction allows the finished product to be brought to market more quickly and thereby rented or sold more quickly.

Fourth, a garage built within a modular factory enables standardization of quality for the finished product. The product can be designed and repeatedly built to the level of quality that the manufacturer requires. The finished product is not dependent on local subcontractors to achieve perfectly plum walls, adequate structural fastening, undamaged materials, properly completed roofing, and other factors affecting quality.

Notwithstanding the above advantages, until present day, it has remained undiscovered as to how to overcome the aforementioned obstacles which make it difficult to modularize and transport a 2 car garage, with a 16 foot wide garage door opening.

The present invention overcomes these areas of difficulty by incorporating a temporary structural system that enables transportation of each otherwise structurally unsound garage module to allow each module sufficient structure to withstand the rigors and forces of overland highway transport and also the stresses of lifting said structure with a crane, as a completed modular unit.

The temporary structural system is designed to address the missing structural elements of the garage module as a six sided/faced rectangular prism/cube/box, as compared to a typical residential housing module, and create structural integrity for the module on all six sides/faces. The temporary structural system involves:

1. Temporary side walls to form and close the planes of the sides of the garage module,

2. A temporary floor system to enable a bottom structural plane for the rectangular garage module,

3. Laminated veneer lumber (LVLs) to close the middle section of the garage and enable permanent structural support for what is otherwise an open area.

4. A system of parallel outside and inside perimeter structural base boards which lock together and thereby lock the permanent and temporary vertical walls in place, and also locks the temporary structural floor in place, so that the rectangular garage module may be transported overland via carrier and lifted into place as a unified module by crane.

5. A temporary floor system that locks together enabling a bottom structural plane for each garage module, which temporary floor system can be assembled and disassembled, and which locks together with the outside temporary base perimeter to enable structural integrity for the rectangular module.

This bracing and temporary support is critical. When shipped, the modules experience stresses from transport, such as wind resistance, jostling from bumpy roads, and shifting from the accelerating and braking of the transport vehicle. Without this bracing, the module would arrive on the job site out of square, or otherwise deformed. It is not a matter of simply forcing the module back into square because the framing members will have been damaged and the structure will no longer be sound or safe. In other words, the module will have been damaged beyond repair, or damaged to the point that the repairs equal or exceed the costs of the module itself.

The attached drawings depict the elements above which combine to allow a garage to be split into two distinct modules and transported to a job site.

FIG. 1 shows the skeleton of a garage 10 that is fully constructed and assembled. The garage 10 in FIG. 1 is a unified structure, but is composed of two separate independent structures (modules) (See FIGS. 5, 6 ) which combine at the roof ridge 11, and whose center LVLs 22, 32 (See FIGS. 2, 3, 5, 6 ) are mating surfaces that match and combine and are lagged together (fastened together using lag bolts/screws) to unify the structure.

FIGS. 2 and 3 show the lower garage skeleton broken into two separate base sections. These two sections receive the roof trusses shown in FIG. 4 and, once combined, become the garage module halves of FIGS. 5 and 6 . They are shipped to a prepared site and are set adjacent to one another and fastened together on a site-built garage foundation to form the base of the garage skeleton. Each base section contains an LVL 22, 32 to span the space of the open room, which rest on, and are fastened to, the top plates 23, 33, of perimeter stud walls 24, 34.

The LVLs shown are double (2-ply) LVLs built into each module. These are single piece structural elements that provide the unified garage with sufficient structural strength in its open middle to carry the weight of the garage roof structure. They also help provide sufficient structural integrity to the open middle face of the garage during the shipping process to bind the module together. Garage door entrance LVL 36 provides sufficient support for a single-door 2-car garage door opening 31. These LVLs can span the length of the module and do not require any interior support posts along the span. This allows for an open space floor plan. Two 1-car garage door openings can be fabricated as well (not shown), if the customer/user desires.

FIG. 4 shows the hinged roof trusses 40 spaced two feet on center, arranged in their orientation on top of the base garage modules. Each roof truss 40 is a half truss and connects to an identical roof truss opposite, so that the hypotenuse of each truss extends to and fastens to the ridge beam of the garage 11 (FIG. 1 ), and the bottom chord 42 of each truss fastens to the center LVLs 22, 32 of each module. The hinged roof truss 40 has a hinge 46 that allows the upper end of the truss 47 to fold down for transport (See FIG. 13 ). The truss 40 is secured by the bottom stationary segment 45. A hinge 43 connected to the stationary segment 45 allows the entire truss 40 to fold at the hinge 43 so that the entire roof truss structure is compact for transport (See FIG. 13 ). The bottom chords 42 of the roof trusses connect not only to the center LVLs 22, 32 (See FIGS. 2 and 3 ) of each module but also to the perimeter walls 24, 34, and serve to structurally complete the top side of each modular rectangle and form an intact structural plane at the top of the module. The knee wall support bracing 44 also have hinges 48 that allow the support bracing 44 to swing into place and be fastened to the bottom chord 42 of the trusses once the roof 40 is raised/deployed to its finished position.

FIGS. 5 and 6 show the two garage modules with hinged roofs raised into their deployed orientation when the modules are set adjacent to one another on a garage foundation. (The hypotenuses of each hinged roof truss are laid flat during shipping over the road, see FIG. 13 ).

The hinged trusses are fastened to each rectangular base section to form the basic modular rectangular structure. These are the two garage modules. Temporary support structure (FIG. 7 ) is then attached to enable the bottom plane of the rectangle (the temporary floor) to be stabilized, and for the open sides (garage middle) of each module to be stabilized.

FIG. 7 shows the perimeter structural system necessary to create the structural integrity of a module for shipping and lifting as applied to the base of the module, and which bounds the module's perimeter at the base on both the exterior and interior of the module walls. This figure shows only the temporary structural elements 72. The permanent structure is set in the spaces/gaps 74 between the temporary structure 72.

FIG. 8 shows the temporary perimeter structural system 72 that is applied to both the inside and outside at the base of the framed walls 24 of each module. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, these perimeter boards are 2×10 boards, but could be boards of varying size and thickness depending on the size and weight of a module. The temporary outside perimeter board in the open middle of each garage may be increased in size and weight in the form of an LVL if necessary to increase structural integrity. Alternatively, boards of lesser width and thickness can be used in other areas of the structure. These perimeter boards are fastened to the framing of the modules using screws, lags, double headed nails or other fasteners of appropriate thickness and length. The internal and external boards of the perimeter base are also lagged together with threaded rod and hex nuts to increase the structural strength of the base perimeter temporary support system.

FIG. 9 shows the temporary floor structure 92 that is installed in the bottom open face of the garage module to enable this bottom side of the rectangular garage module to be structurally closed and form an intact structural plane, necessary for the module to be transported and hoisted. The temporary floor 92 can be fastened to the temporary perimeter boards 72 using screws, double headed nails, joist hangers, or other fasteners. After the garage modules are set upon their foundation, the temporary floor 92 and perimeter boards 72 are disassembled and can be reused in transporting another garage of the same size and dimension.

FIG. 10 shows the temporary support structure including perimeter base system 72 and temporary flooring 92 applied to a rectangular base module.

FIG. 11 shows the temporary vertical walls 94 that are also built in specific panel sizes to close in the side planes of each module's open middle side, and also the front plane of the module containing the opening for the permanent garage door, which is used for vehicular ingress and egress. These panels can be easily secured within these openings and within the temporary perimeter base support system 72, and fastened structurally into the side walls, into the upper plane of each rectangular module, and to the perimeter base system 72, and then can be disassembled after the garage is set upon it's foundation, and reused in transporting another garage of the same size and dimension. FIG. 12 shows an alternate method of using X-shaped temporary wall cross bracing 95.

FIG. 13 shows a garage module in its folded/transport position. The trusses 40 fold down at the lower hinge 43 so that the module will fit under bridges, wires, and other obstacles encountered during transport. The uppermost end portion of the truss 47 folds down at upper hinge 46 to reduce the width of the module for road transport.

The perimeter base support system is lagged together using threaded steel rod and hex nuts together with blocking. This is useful in preventing the system from moving during over the road transport or when lifted by crane and set into place.

The temporary structural system is created as follows: A base perimeter structural system 72 consisting of structural lumber is put into place on both the interior and exterior of the modules' walls. Then, a temporary interior structural floor system 92 is built and fastened to the temporary base perimeter structural support system 72 to stabilize the bottom plane of the module. Next, temporary vertical structural framing 94, 95 is set within the openings on each module's sides to stabilize the sides of each rectangle. Finally, the base perimeter structural system is lagged together using threaded steel rod and hex nuts and blocking is used to minimize movement of the perimeter.

This temporary structural support system allows the user to transport garage modules. This thereby allows building a garage comprised of modules within a factory environment and serves to enable off-site modular construction which delivers the advantages previously described herein. Garages may be built of various dimensions, and may optionally contain habitable space above the garage ceiling; and/or may contain an optional vestibule with stairs to allow access to an above attic. Garage depths typically range from 20-32 feet and widths can range from 20-48 feet. However, virtually any type of two or three car garage that is built from wood framing may be modularized using the above identified system, built off of a job site, and transported to a job site where it can be crane-set on a site-built foundation. The figures within this application show an optional vestibule within the representative garage structure and also an optional attic space above the vehicular space. These kinds of garages may be built and modularized using this kind of temporary support system, as well as simpler types of garages omitting attic spaces and/or vestibules containing stairs. The garage modules can also be finished with sheathing inside the factory after their basic structural construction is complete, house wrap applied, windows and doors installed, sided using virtually any type of siding, roofed with residential shingles, and electric wiring pre-installed. These features can vary according to customer. For example one customer might want a basic garage shell with no windows to use as little more than a shed, while another customer might want a fully finished garage complete with wiring, insulation, and windows. Another customer might want an unfinished garage that can be finished at a later date since the use of the space is not yet determined (for example, it might be planned to double as a workshop, a home office, or an exercise space). These normal construction aspects of a finished garage are not shown here since they are customized to a customer's specifications using known techniques and are not novel to the invention claimed.

The foregoing embodiments of the present invention have been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. These descriptions and embodiments are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed, and obviously many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above disclosure. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain the principle of the invention and its practical applications to thereby enable others skilled in the art to best utilize the invention in its various embodiments and with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A modular, unified, and completed garage structure comprising: first and second garage modules, having mating surfaces and exterior walls, and temporary wall bracing and temporary floor bracing, wherein said modules have open interiors, free of any supports apart from said exterior walls and said mating surfaces, wherein said first module has a garage door opening in one of said exterior walls, wherein said mating surfaces comprise matching pairs of structural lumber that span the length of the module.
 2. The modular garage of claim 1, wherein said opening is a single-door, 2-car garage door.
 3. The modular garage of claim 1, wherein said pairs of structural lumber are laminated veneer lumber (LVLs).
 4. The modular garage of claim 1, wherein said first and second garage modules are sized to fit on a transport suitable for interstate highway travel to a foundation site, and after arriving at said site, can be joined together as a single garage structure.
 5. The modular garage of claim 1, wherein said temporary floor bracing allows a garage module to be transported over a highway and lifted onto a foundation by a crane.
 6. The modular garage of claim 1, wherein said temporary wall bracing comprises vertical structural members that enclose the sides and garage door opening of a garage module to allow said garage module to be transported over a highway and lifted onto a foundation by a crane.
 7. The modular garage of claim 1, further comprising a temporary base perimeter structural system affixed to said exterior walls to allow said garage module to be transported over a highway and lifted onto a foundation by a crane. 